IELTS Writing band 6 to band 7: what changes in each criterion

The step from band 6 to band 7 in Writing is not a longer essay or harder words. It is four habits, one for each marking criterion, and each can be seen on the page. This guide takes them in turn, shows how the arithmetic works, and ends with a four-week plan. The short version of the descriptors is in the answer on how to get band 7 in IELTS Writing, which this page goes beyond. For the layout of the test itself, see the guide to the Writing format.

How the Writing band is built

IELTS.org’s scoring page says each task is assessed on its own, the four criteria are weighted equally, and the score on the task is their average. The Academic Writing format page adds that Task 2 contributes twice as much as Task 1 to the Writing score. The descriptors on this site’s explorer give each criterion a whole band on each task, with no half bands inside a criterion.

Here is the arithmetic with invented marks for a Task 2 essay. Four criteria at 6 average 6.0. Lift one criterion to 7 and the average is 6.25. Lift two and it is 6.5. Lift all four and it is 7.0. Every criterion you raise by one band moves that task by a quarter band, so the climb to band 7 comes from a modest gain in several places, not one heroic one.

Two limits apply. IELTS does not publish how the two task averages become the Writing band, only that Task 2 weighs more, and it publishes no marks or thresholds. The result is reported as a whole or half band, and the explorer’s own note says IELTS does not publish how an average between two half bands is reported, so do not count on the higher one. Any threshold you see elsewhere is a guess.

What changes, criterion by criterion

Task Response (Task Achievement in Task 1)

At band 6, every part of the question is answered and your position is visible. But one part may get far more room than another, one idea is named without being unpacked, and the conclusion can be murky or repeat itself. At band 7, one position runs through the whole essay and nothing later contradicts it, and the main points are explained and backed up.

The habit that keeps essays at 6 is listing: “Another benefit is convenience, which is important.” That names a point and stops. A developed point has three moves, in this order: a claim, the reason it is true, and a concrete case. Here is an invented outline, not a model answer:

• Claim: public libraries still matter.
• Reason: they give a quiet place and a connection to people who have neither at home.
• Case: a student who revises there after school, because her flat is noisy.

Two other habits are worth checking: a conclusion that adds an argument the essay never made, and a two-part question where one part gets a single sentence.

For Task 1, the Academic descriptors ask for a clear overview of the main movements, with detail that matches the figures. The General Training ones ask for a clear purpose, a consistent tone and every bullet point covered with some weight. The Task 1 cells are in the explorer too.

Coherence and Cohesion

At band 6, the answer is organised, but inside and between sentences the joins feel added on, “this” is sometimes unclear, and paragraph breaks do not always fall where the ideas change. At band 7, the order of ideas is logical, the progression is clear inside each paragraph as well, several kinds of linking device appear where they belong, and each paragraph has one topic you could name.

The habit to check is labelling instead of connecting: “firstly, secondly, thirdly” doing the work the ideas should do. The fix is to write the topic sentence of each paragraph first and make every other sentence answer it. The guide to linking words and coherence goes into this in detail.

Lexical Resource

At band 6, your vocabulary is wide enough for the task, you try less common words, and some of those attempts are not quite right. Spelling and word-form slips appear but do not stop a reader understanding you. At band 7, you can be flexible and exact at once, less common words come with a feel for register and for which words go together, and errors of choice, spelling and form are occasional.

Band 6 writers tend to lose the band in three ways: swapping a plain word for a grander one that does not fit, using spoken idioms in an academic essay, and pairing words wrongly, as in “make a research”. The fix is to learn words in pairs and to check any pairing you are unsure of in a dictionary that shows collocations. A smaller number of well-chosen words beats a larger number that are nearly right. Also check that the same word is spelled one way throughout.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

At band 6, simple and complex sentences both appear, and there are grammar and punctuation errors, though a reader gets your meaning without repairing the sentence. At band 7, you write several kinds of complex sentence, many sentences come out with nothing wrong in them, and punctuation is controlled well enough to go unnoticed.

The habit to check is repetition of one safe pattern, usually the same complex opener in every paragraph, together with errors you tolerate because they do not block meaning. A missing plural or a wrong preposition repeated in every paragraph is a habit and not an accident. Another trap is saving complex structures for the introduction and conclusion and writing the body in short sentences. Mix relative clauses, conditions, concessions and participle phrases through the whole essay, and check comma splices by structure, not by feel.

A four-week plan

This is a suggested plan, not an IELTS rule. It assumes you can write about three times a week.

Week 1: find the gap

Write one Task 2 essay in 40 minutes and one Task 1 report in 20, which are the timings IELTS.org suggests. Mark each against the band 6 and band 7 wording, one criterion at a time, and write one line of evidence for each mark. Choose the two lowest criteria.

Week 2: Task Response and Coherence

Plan for five minutes before each Task 2 essay: your position, two main points, and for each point a reason and a case. Write two essays. After each, read only the first sentence of every paragraph and ask whether they state the plan. Rewrite one body paragraph from claim, reason and case.

Week 3: vocabulary and grammar

Start an error log with the headings Vocabulary and Grammar. Record each error and its correction, and aim at one repeated error each week. Write two more essays, and in each look for two pairings you can improve and three different sentence structures.

Week 4: whole sets and a comparison

Write two full sets, one Task 1 and one Task 2 within the 60 minutes, marking each against the descriptors. Compare with Week 1. If a criterion has moved, keep the habit that moved it. If not, spend your next weeks on it. The study plan can place these weeks around your test date.

A criterion breakdown shows where to work

Your own marking is weakest where you are most used to your own writing, and a single Writing band does not say which criterion is lowest. IELTS Mentor AI returns the Writing band with all four criterion bands, a reason for each and a note on what worked and how to improve. That is AI marking and not an examiner’s mark, but it shows which criterion to take into Week 2 and Week 3, and lets you compare your own judgement with a second reading.

Then put the result back into the arithmetic above. Three criteria at 7 and one at 6 is closer to the target than four at 6, and the one at 6 is what to work on. If you want to see how the Writing band fits with your other sections, the band score calculator works out the overall band.